Smallwood Has Left The Building

This is akin to Sarcevic with County?

 

I agree with the need to be ruthless and no room for sentimentality, but why do people continue with this myth that Stockport let Sarc go? They didn't, they offered him a 1 year deal and he wanted 2.

 

We know how much GA rates Smallwood. He picked him even during his rocky spells when the fans were on his back. He also said how much he rated him at the POY night in his speech.

With that in mind I can’t believe GA didn’t want to keep his captain. One the players obviously respected and played for.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this was a decision made above GA :-(

 

I just can't see him ending up at Carlisle with Hughes now confirmed to be staying. I don't think Smallwood was his biggest fan.

 

Yeh Richie, Gilli, Chaz, Chapman and Novak.

 

There’s a thought …Cooky to Carlilse?

 

Im 100% GA was consulted on this one.

 

You've got to allow the club do what they believe best. Smallwood has been great for us and helped get us promoted from a piss poor league. We need to strengthen all over the park to ensure we don't come straight back down. This decision will be judged on where we finish next season but like someone has mentioned, Sarcevic was released by Stockport County after winning promotion and he looked a class above for us, it didn't do them any harm.

 

Don’t forget the Gent connection.
So the committee of 5 would be consulted.

Gent, GA , Sparks but the Footballing/ Finance/ Contract overseer, Sharp would probably call it?

 

I'm OK with this. The harsh reality is, we need better for League One.

I was never really warm on Smallwood. Had some good games and he's cemented his place in our good favour by being a promotion winning captain. But I still think he cost us the title with what happened against Swindon.

 

I am shocked but now it has sunk in I am evaluating his contribution over the 3 years. It is only his last year that he has really performed like the player we thought we had bought. His free kicks and corners have been abysmal throughout his three years and seemingly not to be challenged by any other player.

It was ever thus that players move on. We have a management team who are making the decisions and they are the ones we place our trust in. So with that my best wishes go with Richie.

 

Smallwood was a two year contract with a one year option activated by appearances

 

I bet City offered Smallwood a one year deal despite what he is saying

 

My fear for this season is young mobile midfielders going past ours. Maybe that’s the rationale. Smallwood always looked below. Still a shock.

 

I meant slow.

 

isnt not meeting a players contract demands akin to letting him go, or are we going into super pedant mode this monday?! We all know the circumstances.

 

Thanks, you saved me some time, typing exactly what you said

 

Very surprising, and a puzzling statement from Richie re: not being offered a deal?

In any event, very grateful to Smallwood for what's he's done here, very consistent player who we over relied on at times. You absolutely need that experienced DM in League Two and it's shown.

Never been my personal favourite player though, and I'm more surprised than disappointed. In fact, I'm very surprised, but not very disappointed.

The need to fill that gap with quality is obvious now. Power does NOT do it. There needs to be a quality signing at DM and no mistake, and that's a huge compliment to Richie.

 

Did we let POC, Watt and Vernam go? No, we offered them new deals but they chose not to accept them because they had better offers from elsewhere. Same with Sarc, he was offered a deal by Stockport but chose not to take them up on it because he received a better offer from us.

 

This comes as a bit of a shock (if there can be such a thing in football) I was hoping Power was to complement Smallwood not take over from him, reading the OP I'm hoping this means Stephan has finally realised getting promotion means he has to get more involved financially, yet Parker is insinuating the club are finding players demands are higher than they originally thought, fingers crossed Stephan is happy to back us.